


Like Fire in Water (Or: The Tattoos of Newt Scamander)

by LaughingLynx



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cinnamon Roll Newt Scamander, F/M, Fluff, Magical Tattoos, Post-Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 13:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingLynx/pseuds/LaughingLynx
Summary: After Grindelwald is taken down, Tina starts spending more time with the people she cares about, and as her relationship with Newt progresses, she can't help but notice the tattoos he has.





	Like Fire in Water (Or: The Tattoos of Newt Scamander)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> This is the first thing I've written in a few years without someone else that isn't for school, and it's my first ever fan fiction, so I'd appreciate any constructive feedback people have! It's not perfect, and beta-ed by me, so any mistakes are mine and mine alone.

After Grindelwald is, finally, put away for good, Tina finds time to relax, to spend time with the people she loves, old friends and new alike. She could, maybe should, go back to her job, which she knows would be open to her if she wanted it back, but there are wounds that monster left that need to be healed before she wants to think about that, and people she cares about more than her work.

There are people who she focusses on more, of course.

Queenie, as she tries to repair the rift between them that had appeared out of nowhere. She blames herself, in many ways, for not seeing how desperate and unhappy her sister was back home, but she blames Grindelwald more.

Along with her sister comes Jacob, and his wonder for the magical world that he can now explore, at least in Europe, without that shadow hanging over him, and the slowly repairing relationship with Queenie that will take some work, but that she hopes will recover in time.

Percival Graves, who she writes letters to as he recovers from the hell the aurors in the United States had found him in. He thinks she should come back to work, and she tells him that he’s projecting his own frustration at not being able to do the same onto her in the hopes of living vicariously through her. He denies that in handwriting that still shakes from his injuries.

And then there’s Newt.

*

The first time they really talk without the fear of that monster hovering over their conversation like a thick fog is at the funeral for Leta Lestrange, and she can’t tell which of the brothers is grieving more. There isn’t a body, nothing to bury, but it felt only right to have a ceremony of some sort. Newt is quiet, and his eyes are red with unshed tears by the time she gently pulls at the sleeve of his coat, leading him away from the dispersing crowd.

She does most of the talking. She’s not like Queenie, of course, and she doesn’t know what to say, so she asks about his creatures, talks about what she’d read in his book when it was first published. It’s safe territory, and at least he moves a little out of the shell that had come up around him.

*

The second time is in his suitcase. While she still scolded him for the impossible number of laws he was breaking by keeping his animals there, she likes the ritual of feeding them, likes having something to do with herself. Idleness has never suited her, and even as she tries to figure out where she wants to go next, she has to do something.

He has his sleeves rolled up, coat and jacket tossed to the side somewhere in his workshop. Newt’s skin is covered in freckles and an impressive collection of scars from his creatures, but there’s something new today, something different. It takes a moment for her to place it, but then there’s a flutter of dark that darts across the back of his left wrist and up his forearm, perching at his elbow. Leaning forward, she frowns at the sight of a bedraggled looking raven chick, and she glances up only to see him looking over towards the tattoo as well. He doesn’t need to explain, because after the whole excessively convoluted conversation about Leta’s family, she can guess, but the story is not what she’d expected, and so she’s glad he does anyways. Instead of the Leta she knew, briefly, this story is about a lonely young girl and the strange boy she’d found caring for a baby bird, and she watches his sad smile for a moment before assuring him that it was perfect.

*

The next time she notices another tattoo is on a date. Of course, he would never call it that, but his first fumbled question of whether she would want to go to a NoMaj zoo a few weeks ago to track down a possibly magical creature had felt enough like a date, when it came to Newt Scamander, that she’s pretty sure sitting in a café, waiting to see if he could spot the animal trafficker he was looking for, counts as well. Even though it’s still illegal, she’s started helping him with his animals more and more. It’s like what she used to do, as an auror, the investigation aspect familiar, but… At least now she feels like she’s helping, instead of being told to stay back and ignore something as vile as what had happened to Credence.

The tattoo is barely visible, a tiny constellation, using the freckles on the back of his hand as stars, and the lines connecting them are only just dark enough to see, and she never would have noticed it if his hand weren’t so close to her own, fingers just shy of brushing against her own. _‘Pyxis,’_ he says, when she asks. _‘It’s a compass.’_ It’s nothing more than two lines connecting three dots, but as he shifts his hand slightly, it changes direction to point north. It fits him, practical for his line of work, and she smiles privately to herself before turning back to what they were working on, dark eyes scanning through the café for the face in the picture he’d showed her. If she misses a warm glance from Newt and a small smile of his own, there’s no one there but him to tell her, and he doesn’t.

*

Percival is right that Newt would never really talk about their relationship. Apparently, her former boss and Theseus had been close during the war, and so while he isn’t an authority on Newt specifically, he has some insight, and since he and his never fully healing curse injuries don’t have anything better to do than continue reading the letters she sends him, he seems happy to offer it.

She knew, when she was getting into this, when she’d agreed to go to China, and now Egypt with the magizoologist, going with him as he continued research for another book, that there would never be any grand moment, any declaration of love. It wasn’t in his nature. Gestures, yes. Little things he did for her, just for her. Physical contact, when he normally avoids it, or tiny blink-and-you’ll-miss-them smiles.

And now this.

She’d woken in the middle of the night, stumbling out of the tent they were staying in as they went after something called a serpopard, one of the rarer creatures that Newt wanted to study on this trip. When she steps back inside, he’s rolled onto his back, spread out over the cot, and she smiles at him, then pauses, staring at his bare chest for a moment.

Because there, curled up just over his heart, is a tiny salamander, looking back up at her for a moment with dark eyes that match her own, swirling and dark, like fire in water.


End file.
